The BBC reports:

There was a huge fuss last year over an increase of 17.8 percent, for a total of $44.94 billion. And you’ll note that last year’s increase was, at the time, the largest on record. Of course, I don’t put any stock at all in these numbers. The actual number is certainly far higher, once unofficial programs (like a nuclear powered aircraft carrier, anti-sattelite weapons, and lord knows what else) are taken into account. Figure in the lies they’re telling themselves about how much corruption and inefficiency is built into their own military-industrial complex, take account of purchasing power parity–you could be talking about a figure not unlike what the United States is spending every year, except without all the health care expenses, the two wars, the blue water Navy, the global commitments, etc. etc. Oh, and they also don’t include procurement in the official budget. How much might production of six submarines a year cost (the U.S. builds one a year) or the new, indigenous J-10 multirole fighter? Nobody really knows. So what are we doing different this year? Here’s the story from March 4, 2007: